His brief communiqué stated: “On October 17, 1961, Algerians who were demonstrating for the right to independence were killed in an act of bloody repression. The Republic recognizes lucidly these facts. Fifty-one years after the tragedy, I pay tribute to the memory of the victims.”

Large numbers of Algerian demonstrators, who had come to a peaceful protest with their entire families, were murdered–shot, drowned in the Seine River, or beaten to death. The exact number of victims is unknown, as police archives have not been made public, a key demand of victims’ relatives and survivors of the massacre. Historian Jean-Luc Einodi, who wrote La Bataille de Paris (The Battle of Paris) about the massacre, estimates the death toll at 250, though Papon’s absurd tally of 3 dead and 64 wounded still stands as the French state’s official toll. (French filmmaker Alain Tasma made a moving film in 2005, Nuit noire (October 17, 1961), about the incident.)

Police arrested 11,538 demonstrators and detained them in locations throughout Paris, including the Vél D’Hiv cycling stadium–where, 19 years before, Paris police under the orders of René Bousquet had detained thousands of Jews before sending them to Nazi death camps.

President Francois Hollande has acknowledged the brutality of France’s colonisation of Algeria, but stopped short of a full apology: here.